Aunty thwarts Facebook teen-sex bid

A HOBART man used Facebook to attempt to procure a 13-year-old girl for sex but when he turned up at a pre-arranged meeting police were waiting.

Nathan Lee Wechsler, 20, discovered the "girl" he had been asking for sex was actually an adult who posed as a 13-year-old, The Mercury said.

In a special hearing in the Supreme Court in Hobart this week to determine whether the mildly intellectually disabled pensioner was fit to plead to the charge, the jury found it could not say that Wechsler was not guilty of the crime.

He was facing a single charge of communicating with intent to procure a young person under the age of 17 to engage in an unlawful sexual act.

The court heard Wechsler used his Facebook account to engage in an online conversation with a 12-year-old girl.

But the girl's aunt monitored her Facebook account and discovered Wechsler, who was not a Facebook "friend" of the child, had sent a sexually explicit message to her niece and had suggested a meeting.

The aunt posed as 13-year-old "Breanna", a fictional friend of her niece, to engage in online conversations with Wechsler on November 8 and 9 last year. After notifying police, the aunt made arrangements to meet Wechsler at the Glenorchy library.

Police located him at a computer terminal and he was arrested and charged.

Justice Porter said Wechsler was judged unfit to stand trial "largely because of his limited understanding of the nature of the charge and his limited ability to weigh up decisions when making a defence".